New Cooking Channel debuts Monday

[grasswire]

I understand that it will replace the DIY network on my cable service. It will be interesting to see how it goes. Reportedly, there will be re-runs of old Julia Child episodes, among other things.

[housewolf]

1. Cooking Channel to replace the "Fine Living" channel - lots of info from the NYT

Much, more more at the link

Newcomer to Food Television Tries for a Little Grit
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/dining/21network.html?pagewanted=1&hp

Called the Cooking Channel, it is lining up low-key programs targeted at a hipper crowd interested in the grass roots of food culture.

Ms. Deen, for one, will not have a time slot. But three young guys from Canada who build taco vending machines and other weird contraptions for a show called “Food Jammers” will.

In another show, “Unique Eats,” taped earlier this month at Bark, a boutique hot-dog shop in Park Slope, Brooklyn, the cameras lavished attention on baked heirloom beans and franks topped with Columbia County sauerkraut.

The new channel, which announced its opening lineup at a presentation for advertisers in Manhattan on Tuesday morning and which will replace the Fine Living Network, is even considering producing documentary-style programming on topics like bulimia and obesity.

“The feel and style we’re going for is a little grittier, a little edgier, a little hipper,” said Bruce Seidel, the senior vice president for programming and production for the Cooking Channel.

.....

The new channel’s success, its executives and other observers say, will depend on the public’s desire for more narrowly focused food programming and the ability of the producers to mint the kind of on-camera talent that propelled Food Network.

In fact, the channel is hedging its bets with new shows by established talent including Mr. Lagasse, Rachael Ray and Bobby Flay. And it has a spinoff of another hit, called “Cook Like an Iron Chef,” in which Michael Symon, a Cleveland chef, makes dishes like those concocted in Kitchen Stadium. But less familiar faces await.

Many of the newcomers are imports from Canada and elsewhere. The Canadian shows include “Food Jammers”; “French Food at Home,” starring Laura Calder; “David Rocco’s Dolce Vita”; “Everyday Exotic,” with the Toronto food personality Roger Mooking; and “Chuck’s Day Off,” featuring a young and enthusiastic Montreal chef, Chuck Hughes.

.....

Cooking Channel will broadcast an hour each day of vintage episodes of “The Galloping Gourmet” and old Julia Child shows.
....

[DrDan]

2. "grittier" - not sure that is the best descriptor for a food channel

[Phentex]

3. I had not heard that...

I have seen commercials for the new channel but wondered where it would end up. Thanks for the info.

[Phentex]

4. I still like some things on the Food Network...

but it has derailed IMO over the past few years.

[Warpy]

6. Too many chefs, not enough cooks, IMO

Right now, I'm watching "French Cooking at Home" and getting a little annoyed with a person who says "fleur de sel" instead of salt, but the recipe she's doing for carrots looks great. I'll have to try it next October when I can use the oven again.

Unfortunately, she's using fancy veg you just can't get at the Piggly Wiggly in Podunk, a real mistake with these shows. It all comes off as pretentious and unachievable.

Sometimes I think the major qualification for these shows should be that you didn't go to culinary arts school. Oh, there's a place for Iron Chef, but there should be a place for grandma food, too, that people at home can actually do.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Not here it's not. No sign of it at all on Cablevision, but I do have...

at least 300 sports channels.

[grasswire]

7. watching a baking show right now...

....a sort of school with several students following the chef along.

One problem I see for American viewers is that both chefs I've watched this morning are Brits, and everything they describe is in metrics and Brit terminology (caster sugar, etc.)

[grasswire]

8. now it's an Aussie family man cooking at home

adorable blonde children. He's making Asian inspired dishes -- apparently he lived in Tokyo for some time.

[grasswire]

9. ha, this Italian family is hilarious

The Papa, particularly.

So I've caught a minute of another Aussie show and now the Italians. Wish I could keep track of what's coming, but I gotta go out for most of the rest of the day.

[housewolf]

10. I watched the Food Jammers guys trying to make their own soda pop

They had an ambitious idea of making 6 different flavors from natural ingredients ingredients. FIrst try they bottled their syrups with spring water and yeast and stuck them in the refrigertor for 3 days - a bunch of the bottles exploded and they had a huge mess to clean up.

Then developed a system of adding carbon dioxide stored in canisters in the refrigerator and using a system of remote dispensers (connected with big tubing through holes in the refrigerator door!). Each flavor had its own unique handle at the dispener. They're funny, silly and irreverent - and enjoyable.

[housewolf]

11. Watching a half-hour biography of Cat Cora called "At the Table"

A Canadia froadcast from 2008. Very interesting! it includes clips of how she got started as a chef, her starting a charity "Chefs for Humanity" that helped out the tsanumi and Katrina, clips with her mother, how she met and married her wife, their 2 kids, her new restaurant "CCQ" - Cat Cora's Barbeque, being an Iron Chef. It's very personal and portrays the real person. I came away from it with a good sense of who she is and with a large amount of affection and respect for her. Favorite quote from her "I'm not only an Iron Chef, I'm an ironing chef" as she was doing some ironing.

[housewolf]

12. Oh my gosh - Donut Ice Cream Sandwiches!

From the Peter Pan Donut Bakery

As seen on "Foodography"'s show on Ice Cream

Along with gorgeous baked alaska, a hand-made deer ice cream cake, and other such frozen treats - like ice cream popcorn and bacon flavored ice cream (I love bacon but I just couldn't do bacon flavored ice cream... no, I just couldn't). Also hand-delivered homemade ice cream, goat's milk ice cream, ice cream frozen with nitrogen, an ice cream made from orchids & konjab (sp?) flour in Turkey that turns into a long stretcy frozen treat. Interesting


This show is making me want a milkshake SOOOO bad!

[pengillian101]

13. Thanks, I forgot about this!

Cooking Channel will broadcast an hour each day of vintage episodes of “The Galloping Gourmet” and old Julia Child shows.

“The Galloping Gourmet” is laugh out loud funny! Thanks for the reminder to record those and of course Julia. :donut:

[housewolf]

14. I remember the Galloping Gourmet from back in the 70's, I think

That crazy drunken guy trapsing about the kitchen putting things together that in the end, always turned out great. He was pretty funny, as I remember. Not so sure a drunken chef plays well to today's audience... I'll check it out and see what I think now.

[pengillian101]

16. Thanks for the link!

Here's a funny youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mY4Qi7J4ag

[pengillian101]

18. Not so sure a drunken chef plays well to today's audience...

Probably not so much, but I will watch from a nostalgia view.

Enjoy with me, lol!

[housewolf]

15. Oh there's the link - cookingchanneltv.com

http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/

I couldn't find it last night

[pengillian101]

17. Thanks alot!

:hi: